Finally I found the “missing” register of midwives for 1921 – this completes the set of Midwife Registers from 1916 to 1956 from the Victoria Government Gazette. In the process of indexing it I spotted a familiar name – Lily GRANT, the great aunt of my former partner. I couldn’t resist including this photo – one of my favourites – it’s Lily with her four sisters. It was taken in 1916 on her younger sister Janet’s wedding day [L-R: Dora, Ethline, Lily, Janet and Mary]. The wedding took place at their home ‘Chesterfield’ at 221 Noble Street, Newtown. It was five years later, 1921, when Lily was registered as a midwife. She went on to become a Registered Nurse and eventually ran her own private hospital in Blackburn.

With the Midwives completed, indexing is now progressing on the first six registers for Nurses have now been added to the database – these also continue through to 1956 in the Government Gazette. These are not all “local” girls as the registers include girls from Melbourne and all over Victoria who did their Nurse Training at Geelong Hospital or Colac Hospital.

But the really BIG additioncomes from the PROV Assisted Immigrants to Victoria index. Over the years we have identified the ships that brought Assisted Immigrants to Geelong, or more specifically Point Henry. We have extracted all passengers and list references for these ships. If they landed here, even if they moved on to other areas, they spent at least SOME time in our region. Many people don’t realise the importance of some of these “duplicate” passenger lists – some identify passengers who were eventually moved from the ship at Point Henry to the Immigration Depot in Geelong.

Although many of these entries are available through PROV, Ancestry, Findmypast etc. this database gives you different options for searching that might help find that elusive ancestor. Make sure you read the Search Tips to understand the string, wildcard and group search options.

As an example, search for:

INDEX ENTRY bridg

TITLE immig

and you will find lots of entries for Bridget etc. but not just from this new Assisted Immigrants index – you will also find local entries from Assisted Immigrants Remittances; Orphan Immigrants; Immigration Depot Funerals; and Immigration Depot Returns. Leave out the title to find other local entries from almost 140 indexes in the database.

We now have 1,478,815 recordsin the Geelong and District database. I thought 1.5 million entries by the end of 2014 would be a challenge but hopefully an achievable target. So much for that theory! We have no excuse for not achieving that target now! After I’ve taken a breath I need to start working on the Unassisted Immigrants who landed at Point Henry / Geelong. This is what’s been added since the last major update on 27 December 2013:

Break O’Day, later called Corindhap, featured in Shot for Gold: the murder of Thomas Ulick Burke on the Woady Yaloak Goldfield – a fascinating reconstruction from many original records of this murder which resulted in two executions. Details are now part of the Geelong & District Database.

Recent additions to the database include a number of local history books.

We now have 1,423,946 recordsin the Geelong and District database. This is what’s been added since the last major update on 24 November:

The Life of our Years: a pictorial chronology of Geelong – Book – 1,534 entries

Vision Splendid: Geelong – Book – 91 entries

Shot for Gold: the murder of Thomas Ulick Burke on the Woady Yaloak Goldfields – Book – 423 entries

*** This completes the series of Registers of Midwives however we are missing one year where we can’t find the Register for 31 December 1921 which would normally have appeared in the first half of 1922. If anyone locates this register, please get in touch. We’re now starting on the Registers of Nurses from the Geelong District.

More than three quarters of these entries came from a terrific book A Pictorial History of the Shire of Ballan – the index includes children named in school photos and names on various Honor Boards.

Those midwives keep popping up and are such a popular collection. As I’ve mentioned before this is one of the few professions that help us track our married or unmarried female ancestors – they didn’t have to give up this role when they married. Even better the Midwives Registers in the Victoria Government Gazette give us name changes [generally due to marriage] and address changes. Once we’ve finished the Midwives Registers we’ll start on the Nurses Registers – another great source for our female ancestors and relatives.

Our Book indexes and Midwives indexes are the product of our wonderful volunteers in our region – some long-term volunteers and others who just pop up through Mailing Lists, Facebook, and of course this Blog. They’re all wonderful!

This is the list of additions since 3 August making a total of 1,410,769 entries in the database:

It seems that people are still fascinated with Midwives which again feature in the latest additions to the Geelong and District database. Unlike teachers who had to give up their job if they married, midwives could be single women, married women or widowed women. Women of any status are traditionally difficult to trace and perhaps that is one of the reasons for the popularity of this index in our database. There are still some years to be indexed from the Victoria Government Gazettes and when they are finished we’ll start extracting Geelong District women from the Registers of Nurses in the Gazettes.

Pictured is Jane FRANCIS, a midwife in our district. Jane PIPER was the daughter of John and Grace PIPER. On 8 April 1830 Jane married Joseph FRANCIS at Bradworthy Parish Church in Devon, England. The couple had 10 children in England. In 1853 they emigrated to Geelong where their married daughter, Mrs Elizabeth PRICE, had settled. Jane FRANCIS is recorded as the midwife on birth certificates from 1867 to 1884. Jane died 2 December 1891 aged 82 and is buried in the Geelong Eastern Cemetery. [photo and information provided by Pam Jennings]

This is the list of additions since 23 June making a total of 1,405,236 entries in the database:

The latest additions to the Geelong and District database and web site include the first part of the index to a new book – Pioneering Days: a woman’s life compiled by the Colac & District Family History Group. The group has spent almost 10 years compiling the data and it definitely warrants a full index. Apart from the terrific content, so many of the entries include funeral details from local newspapers which has resulted in a huge number of people mentioned throughout the book. It would be impossible to include all of these in the printed index, therefore it warranted a full computerised index.

Only 71 pages have been indexed so far but that has resulted in almost 2,000 entries. Multiple entries for people will let you check the book for the date of the funeral(s) and therefore act as a local directory for these people. The book can be purchased from the Colac & District Family History Group.

We also have more additions to the Geelong & District Midwives collection from the Victoria Government Gazette – it still amazes me how popular this series is!

The latest additions to the Geelong and District database and web site include a very special file donated by Thelma Birrell. It is from the diaries of Augusta BOSTOCK [1833-1920]. The diaries have not yet been indexed in the Geelong and District database but are fully text searchable as a .pdf file.

The latest additions to the Geelong and District database are a real mixture. Of particular interest are two indexes from the late Brian Fallon – WWI volunteers and soldiers’ awards in our region. There are a multitude of on-line databases for researching our WWI ancestors, however these indexes produced by Brian over many years are well worth including in our local database.

This is the list of additions since 30 December making a total of 1,319,039 entries in the database:

With that in mind, we’ve specifically targetted midwives adding almost 500 entries from the Registration of Midwives lists from the Victorian Government Gazette. And of course the major benefit of these is that additional information such as address can be viewed free online – a link has been provided to the VGG on the State Library of Victoria web site. Each record from this source includes the date and issue number of the gazette to ensure you can find it easily. Some entries came under the category of married or change of name giving both the married and maiden names of the midwife – a great resource!

This is the list of additions since 25 December making a total of 1,313,653 entries in the database: